Impact of Coherent Versus Multiple Identities on Knowledge Integration    

This paper addresses the influence of two competing views of social identity on knowledge integration. One view sees social identity primarily as a coherent characteristic of organizations, which can leverage knowledge integration by unconditional cooperative behaviour, shared values, mindsets, trust, and loyalty. The opposing view considers social identity as multiple and fragmented. This fragmented view emphasizes the problematic nature of social identity for knowledge integration and states that social identity is an additional barrier to knowledge integration in organizations. The aim of this paper is to examine these competing accounts and to develop insight into the underlying mechanisms that lead to the different effects of social identity on knowledge integration. Two polar case studies illustrate the different effects of a coherent versus multiple identity on knowledge integration and the need for a coherent company-wide social identity, instead of a multiple community or group based social identity, to leverage knowledge integration in organizations.

Willem, Annick, Harry Scarbrough and Marc Buelens. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Knowledge Management>Organizational Communication>Collaboration

Improving Organizational Performance

This session is designed to provide you with an overview of Thomas Gilbert's Behavioral Engineering Model (BEM) and alternatives to his model, and a review of Hersey and Chevalier's PROBE Model to assist you to identify elements that support and impact behavior within your organization.

Bailey, Elizabeth. STC Proceedings (2008). Articles>Management>Collaboration>Organizational Communication

Stasis Theory as a Strategy for Workplace Teaming and Decision Making    

Current scholarship tells us that skills in teaming are essential for students and practitioners of professional communication. Writers must be able to cooperate with subject-matter experts and team members to make effective decisions and complete projects. Scholarship also suggests that rapid changes in technology and changes in teaming processes challenge workplace communication and cooperation. Professional writers must be able to use complex software for projects that are often completed by multidisciplinary teams working remotely. Moreover, as technical writers shift from content developers to project managers, our responsibilities now include useradvocacy and supervision, further invigorating the need for successful communication. This article offers a different vision of an ancient heuristic—stasis theory—as a solution for the teaming challenges facing today's professional writers. Stasis theory, used as a generative heuristic rather than an eristic weapon, can help foster teaming and effective decision making in contemporary pedagogical and workplace contexts.

Brizee, H. Allen. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Management>Collaboration>Theory

In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams

Although our UX management peers have shared many tactics with us that have made their groups more strategically relevant, we’re presenting just a few here. We’ll highlight what we feel are the most salient factors in getting you to the strategy table.

Nieters, Jim and Laurie Pattison. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Management>User Experience>Collaboration

Feature Presentation

A spiral of complexity, often called “feature creep,” costs consumers time, but it also costs businesses money. Product returns in the U.S. cost a hundred billion dollars a year, and a recent study by Elke den Ouden, of Philips Electronics, found that at least half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. Consumers just couldn’t figure out how to use them. Companies now know a great deal about problems of usability and consumer behavior, so why is it that feature creep proves unstoppable?

Surowiecki, James. New Yorker, The (2007). Articles>Project Management>Technology>Collaboration

The Greatest Skill of the 21st Century

In an age when technology is everywhere, those who understand how technology works are easy to find. Those who understand how people work are much harder to find.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2006). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Web Content Management Depends on Trust

You must be able to stand over everything that is published on your website and say that it is all accurate and up-to-date. Trust is a fundamental building block of professional web content management.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Business and Design

As the number of designers interested in owning a seat at the corporate decision-making “table” grows, the number of business strategies advocating design solutions expands as well. Designers keep asking: “how can we convince business owners that investments in design processes are money well spent?” Simultaneously, a number of business publications (most notably Fast Company) are telling corporate decision makers that “design matters.” It’s useful for both sides to view the discussion from each other’s perspective.

Wroblewski, Luke. Functioning Form (2005). Articles>Management>Design>Collaboration

CEOs and Usability

Talking to a CEO about usability can be wonderful or terrifying. The difference between raging success and total failure comes down to understanding exactly what the CEO needs to know and then adjusting your usability message to fit. This article explains how to understand various contexts, and in turn, how to position your usability message.

Rhodes, John S. and Daniel Szuc. Apogee (2006). Articles>Management>Usability>Collaboration

The UX Designer’s Place in the Ensemble: Directing the Vision

What does directing have to do with creating a user interface design? Well, we know a director is responsible for the strategic vision of creative work. That’s a given. But, did you know he is also responsible for ensuring a successful outcome that both meets his vision and is in line with the producer’s desires and budget? To make that happen, a director works with the cast, crew, costume and set designers, and everyone else who contributes to a successful theatrical production to pull together a cohesive product, without losing site of his vision. It’s a complicated job.

Lepore, Traci. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Collaboration>Project Management

Setting Priorities

Nearly every company I’ve worked with since becoming a web professional six years ago has lacked an efficient way to decide which things to do first. Put 10 people into a room for an hour, and they’ll surely come up with a wish list a mile long.

Fraser, Janice. Adaptive Path (2002). Articles>Web Design>Project Management>Collaboration

When Trust Becomes a Characteristic Flaw in a Project

As hard as it may seem, lesson one of technical writing is to break the rules and contact the end user. Conduct a mini-ethnography. Sit with the users. Call them on the phone. Send them emails. Do not let it get to the point where you feel you must go through the PM to communicate with the end user. As hard and uncomfortable as it may be, the consequences of not talking to the end user can be crippling to your help.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Technical Writing

Project Management, Critical Praxis, and Process-Oriented Approach to Teamwork    

To help alleviate issues of free-riding and conflicts in team projects, this study proposes the systematic incorporation of project management methods to introduce a process-oriented approach to and a critical praxis in team projects. We examined how the systematic use of project management methods influenced students' performance in team projects. The findings demonstrate that such an approach enables the documentation and evaluation of and reflection on both individual and team work. Our findings indicate that project management tools enhance team member accountability and help reduce free-riding.

Ding, Huiling and Xin Ding. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Workflow

Management by Emotional Blackmail

Arrogance comes out in the apparent belief that whether the employee has any say in the matter, or has a better idea, is irrelevant in the manager’s mind. Might is right, and if the employee sputters, then the employee is clearly at fault, a troublemaker. The key to neutralizing this type of manager is for the direct reports to band together and decide what they’ll accept. And - as a cohesive group of employees - to work with your HR advisor to express your discomfort with the manager’s particular communication style. Because ultimately, this type of nasty manipulation is deeply disrepectful and dismissive of staff’s qualities and talents. Which makes this behaviour a significant negative factor in the retention of key staff - they will simply no longer put up with it.

Hamer, Emma C. Hamer Associates (2009). Articles>Management>Collaboration

What APIs Can Tell You About a Product

I always try to get a look at a vendor's APIs before (or in the process of) evaluating a product. And I recommend you do, too. If you are involved in a product-selection effort, get input from your developers -- have them evaluate APIs as part of the product-evaluation process. Don't wait until after the deal is inked to find out whether the product's APIs are so problematic that your rollout schedule might have to undergo serious changes.

assertTrue (2009). Articles>Content Management>Programming>Collaboration

How to Talk to Your Boss about Social Media (So She’ll Approve the Budget)

The use of social media for business is certainly a hot topic. For today’s post, Comet Branding’s new partner, Sara Meaney shares her first Comet Branding Blog post with us and dives into the big question on many people’s minds - “How do I convince with my boss that social media is right for our company?”

Meaney, Sara. Comet Branding (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Social Networking

Finding Solutions by Being Aware of the Way You Think  

It is the task of the project manager to be aware of the larger environment in which a project is operating. One approach that helps achieve this insight is systems thinking.

Fischer, Karl. Global Knowledge (2006). Articles>Project Management>Organizational Communication>Collaboration

Delegate or Suffocate: the Art of Working Through Others  

Management is delegation. Either learn to delegate or you will be buried in work that others could, and should, be doing. The more people that a manager can put to effective use, the greater the success of the manager. The more efficiently a manger can put people to work, the greater the success of the manager. As you learn to delegate effectively, your productivity and value to a corporation rise.

Egan, Brian Denis. Global Knowledge (2006). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Guidelines for Conducting Effective and Efficient Meetings

This article puts forth a simple process that you can utilize for conducting effective and efficient meetings (where you work in a framework that aims at accomplishing the goal of the meeting and time is well utilized) at your organization.

Cone Trees (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration

Components, Patterns, and Frameworks! Oh My!

In our research, we've found that teams that build out a re-use strategy see tangible benefits: They are more likely to get a completed design sooner, with all the little nuances and details that make for a great experience. Their designs are more likely to meet users expectations by behaving consistently across the entire functionality. Plus, the teams iterate faster (always a good thing), giving them a chance to play with the design while it's still malleable.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Methods

Why Businesses (Don't) Collaborate: Meeting Management, Group Input and Wiki Use

Today, content professionals are tugged in multiple directions, expected to multi-task their way through an increasing amount of work with the help of software tools designed to make them more productive. This survey aims to explore how you and your co-workers utilize software tools and determine, in various scenarios, whether they are actually a help or a hindrance.

Mader, Stewart and Scott Abel. Scribd (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Innovation Workshops: Facilitating Product Innovation

Innovation workshops can both help you come up with great ideas and align your multidisciplinary product team around them. Innovation workshops facilitate collaboration, foster trust, and promote free expression. They provide a venue for engaging a cross-functional team in brainstorming and creative ideation, filtering a large set of ideas, collaborating on design, rapidly gathering user feedback and iterating designs, and getting the consensus you need to drive an innovative product to market.

Nieters, Jim. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration

Managing Werewolves

While you’re always optimistic when leading a team, you know that not everyone’s got your back. Liars and poor communicators can wipe out good work faster than a 404 error. Learn how to think critically about verbal and non-verbal behavior and to separate office politics from truth, so you don’t let the Werewolves win.

Lopp, Michael. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Is This Meeting Really Necessary?

In a world of virtual tools—blogs, wikis, feeds, forums, listservs, e-mail, IM, chat, Twitter, social networks—one would think that the traditional sit-down, face-to-face meetings had been relegated to a place in a historical museum among other old, discarded traditions (like wearing cravats). But even in the 21st century, many people still believe that if you want to accomplish serious planning and discussion, you need an in-person meeting.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration

What's the Right Answer? Team Problem-Solving in Environments of Uncertainty    

Whether in the workplace or the classroom, many teams approach problem-solving as a search for certainty—even though certainty rarely exists in business. This search for the one right answer to a problem creates unrealistic expectations and often undermines teams' effectiveness. To help teams manage their problem-solving process and communication better, I teach a systematic comparison approach that transforms the search for certainty into a search for the best alternative based on clearly defined and weighted criteria. With this method, team members realize that all problem- solving involves subjective judgments, but that making that subjectivity transparent increases the chances that an adopted solution will in fact solve the business problem at hand.

Jameson, Daphne A. Business Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Education>Project Management>Collaboration